Make Conventions Great Again

Political conventions used to mean something important. Specifically, they used to mean: “Here is where we will pick our party’s nominee.”

But today’s political conventions are largely dog and pony shows to make the delegates feel special, give the news media something to talk about, and benefit the host city, all while promoting the party’s agenda.

Party conventions — perhaps not in terms of their importance, but the sheer logistical headaches they impose — are the political equivalent of the Olympics. And what with delegates, alternates, reporters, party officials and other attendees, Cleveland is expecting roughly 50,000 people to show up for the Republican National Convention next week. (Convention planners had less time than anticipated to get Quicken Loans Arena ready, thanks to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ run in the N.B.A. finals.)

In a normal election year, a party’s convention would attract a high-profile slate of speakers, including up-and-comers. (A young state senator named Barack Obama made his national debut at the 2004 Democratic convention, for example.) But this is not a normal election year, and a stunning number of Republican leaders have decided not to attend the convention.

When Politico talked to more than 50 Republican leaders recently, only a few said they’d be open to speaking at the convention. Even Ohio’s two most prominent Republicans — Gov. John Kasich and Senator Rob Portman — have been hesitant to commit to an event where Donald J. Trump will be offically selected as their party’s nominee.

However, at least three of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary opponents will be speaking at the convention: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. In lieu of party luminaries, Mr. Trump proposed a “winner’s evening” of sports stars. The former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight and boxing promoter Don King are both expected to make appearances, while the Nascar owner Brian France, former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady all turned down Mr. Trump’s invitation.

Apart from the question of star power, there is the question of money. Conventions, like the Olympics, can be a branding boost for the host cities, which is why they lobby so hard to win bids.

Despite talk that the polarizing campaign would make it difficult to fund-raise for the convention this year, David Gilbert, the president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, said his group has raised more than 90 percent of the $64 million it was given the task of getting, “far more than any other convention in history.”

“We’ve always said this was not about red or blue; it was about green,” he said.

But this year, outside groups have encouraged companies to drop their sponsorship of the Republican convention because of Mr. Trump’s offensive statements about minorities. One of those groups was Color of Change PAC, which helped persuade Coca-Cola to drop almost all of its funding for both conventions. (Companies usually pledge the same amount of money to both conventions, and withdrawing from one means withdrawing from both.)

Other big companies followed suit, refusing to pledge money or resources to this year’s convention: Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Coca-Cola, H&R Block, Wells Fargo, U.P.S., Motorola, JPMorgan Chase, Ford and Walgreens. Still, Mr. Gilbert said the effect of companies dropping their sponsorship of the convention has been “relatively small.”

Meanwhile, four tech and communications giants have maintained their support for the Republican convention: AT&T, Microsoft, Google and Facebook. In a statement, Microsoft said that “this year’s conventions may have some more dramatic moments than in some prior years,” making it all the more important for the company to help record accurate vote counts and share that information with the public using Microsoft technology.

Even companies that decided to stay in the convention tried to distance themselves from the presumptive Republican nominee, according to Rashad Robinson, a spokesman for Color of Change PAC. He recalled talking to an AT&T representative who stressed the company’s support for immigration reform, in contrast to Mr. Trump’s plan to deport the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

“If any one of their employees came to work and said the things that Donald Trump says in front of the media, on the campaign trail, they’d be fired,” he said. “The last three standard-bearers for the Republican Party aren’t even going to the convention, so why do these companies feel that they need to?”

The answer, in many cases, is buying influence with both political parties. But past convention planners say corporate sponsorship is all about supporting the democratic process.

“To me, they’re supporting democracy and the democratic process,” said Chip DiPaula, a Baltimore businessman who helped organize the Republican conventions in 1996 and 2000. “It’s an important celebration of American ideals that are over and above any particular nominee.”

Mr. Robinson disagreed.

“Those companies are on the wrong side of history,” he said. “History doesn’t give credit to people who have empathy. History gives credit to people who stand up and make decisions that are sometimes tough.”

Mr. Gilbert, the Cleveland convention president, said this year presents “certainly a more politically charged convention cycle than we’ve had in a long time,” but added that he felt the city is well prepared.

“One of the problems with this is, it’s just like running any big event,” he said. “You can prepare. You can plan. But until the event is over, it’s not over.”

Managing a convention can make even the most absurd logistical problems seem important. Maria Cino, who has been attending Republican conventions since 1984, and was president and chief executive of the 2008 convention in St. Paul, recalled a particular problem in 1996. The Republicans met in San Diego that year, and the convention center’s ceilings were just 25 feet high, making a traditional balloon drop unfeasible. Instead, engineers shot balloons into the air from cannons. Ms. Cino said it was “a bit of a nightmare.”

“I’m not sure that we would do that again,” she said.

Aside from logistical difficulties, there is the question of keeping convention attendees safe. That poses big security problems in a normal election year, let alone one with a nominee as polarizing as Mr. Trump. A white nationalist group, which organized a protest in Sacramento that turned bloody last month, has said it will be on the scene in Cleveland.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton, said scenes from this year’s Republican convention could mirror the protests and riots seen outside the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. That year, the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, tried to maintain some semblance of order. Mr. Trump, in contrast, isn’t too big on sober discourse.

“There’s an element of Trump that would just thrive if there was chaos going on outside the convention,” Mr. Zelizer said. “It’s part of his overall rambunctious style of politics. The more controversy, the more confrontation, the more it works to his advantage, the more people cover it.”

Mr. DiPaula said the foremost concern for any convention planner is pulling off the week smoothly and safely.

“The best feeling was when the convention was over and everybody was safe,” Mr. DiPaula said. “It was a huge feeling of relief.”

Does he think people’s concerns about the safety at the Republican convention have been overblown? He paused. “I’ll tell you when it’s over,” he said.

Correction:

An earlier version of this essay incompletely described Barack Obama’s position when he spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He was an Illinois state senator; he was not yet a United States senator.

Emma Roller (@EmmaRoller), a former reporter for National Journal, is a contributing opinion writer.